Administrative Law and Procedure

This law review article discusses Fifth Circuit decisions in deregulation and administrative law cases. The article compares recent (1985) Fifth Circuit opinions with the court’s past decisions on these issues. The article also compares administrative law rulings of the Fifth Circuit with the holdings of the other circuit courts. Section II of the article is devoted to the topics of deregulation, rulemaking and the scope of judicial review. The author first discusses transportation deregulation, focusing on the special circumstances doctrine and the issue of how much decision-making authority an agency is allowed under its statutory authority. The article then addresses the Clean Water Act of 1977. The author uses the Avoyelles decisions to illustrate the Fifth Circuit’s deference to the EPA with regard to implementing regulatory definitions and interpreting other agencies’ rules. Section III of the article addresses the Fifth Circuit’s refusal to provide guidelines for the Final Order Rule through a discussion of the Newpark decisions.